American Airlines plane fire investigation gets started at Denver International Airport
Two investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were already at work Friday to look into the fire that appeared after American Airlines flight 1006 arrived in Denver the evening before. The incident sent 12 people to hospitals, but all injuries were minor.
"We've got to really understand exactly when this smoke started and I'm not sure exactly why all of a sudden when they got to the gate, the smoke started filling the passenger cabin. I think that will be a part of the investigation," said NTSB chair Robert Sumwalt.
As the investigation got started, there were several key questions to answer. Among them, what went wrong to cause the fire in the engine and was the aircraft appropriately checked before its departure from Colorado Springs Thursday enroute to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Passengers noticed trouble with the aircraft soon after it left Colorado Springs.
"There was an engine making a really bad noise, so I knew something was wrong," said passenger Terri Prager, a former flight attendant.
Recordings of in-flight communications showed no evidence of an emergency being declared as the crew turned the plane around and headed to Denver, following the continued engine vibrations.
American Airlines said in a statement; "After landing safely and taxiing to the gate at Denver International Airport, American Airlines Flight 1006 experienced an engine-related issue."
"The strange thing is that as we were landing because of my experience with airlines, normally the fire engines would have been on the runway waiting for that plane to land," said Prager.
The plane landed successfully and taxied all the way to a gate on the C Concourse.
"We smelled this weird like burning plastic smell and then everybody started screaming and saying there was a fire," said passenger Gabriele Hibbitts.
The crew told passengers to leave their belongings and get out. Some passengers were able to take the ramp into the concourse. Others used an evacuation slide from the rear of the plane where the smoke was stronger. Passengers also evacuated onto the wing on the opposite side of the plane from the fire.
It was several minutes from the time the fire was detected before fire trucks arrived.
Airport ground crews brought out stairs and ladders, but some of the passengers attempted to lower themselves from the wing, leading to injuries.
Sumwalt said how the plane arrived and was sent to the gate would be looked at.
"If the crew had a fire in flight, I would feel sure that they would have stopped the airplane immediately after landing and evacuated. So what did they do? We're going to have to let some of the details come out before we can comment on that."
There are five fire stations at Denver International Airport. Communications systems are checked daily in the mornings in what is called a "coms check."
Denver Fire referred CBS Colorado to airport officials for an answer on how firefighters were informed of the situation with flight 1006. An airport spokesman referred CBS Colorado to the Denver Fire Department.
The NTSB will complete a preliminary report in 30 days, with a final report expected in 12-24 months.
Correction: An earlier version of this story included a witness statement that a slide from the wing of the plane did not deploy. This aircraft model does not have slides from the wings.
